State News

LITTLE ROCK -- In an effort to produce workers who can either navigate a computer keyboard or wield an acetylene torch, Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday suggested a way for high school graduates, home-school graduates and non-traditional students to learn skills without paying a dime.

LITTLE ROCK -- Arkansas' highest court on Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that could have allowed all married same-sex couples to get the names of both spouses on their children's birth certificates without a court order, saying it doesn't violate equal protection "to acknowledge basic biological truths."

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas could be the epicenter for the nation's next major fight over stricter requirements for immunizations as rates of schoolchildren who refuse shots for non-medical reasons climb in America's second-largest state.

LITTLE ROCK -- Buoyed by Republicans' expanded majorities in the Legislature and Donald Trump's presidential victory, abortion opponents in Arkansas are pushing for bans on a commonly used second trimester procedure, terminating a pregnancy based on the fetus' sex and other restrictions next year.

LITTLE ROCK -- Medical marijuana products sold in Arkansas would have to include detailed labels with information about their laboratory analysis, dosage, source and warnings under a draft of rules being prepared for the launch of the first medical pot program in the Bible Belt.

LITTLE ROCK -- The Arkansas Department of Health is studying whether the mumps vaccine is less effective against the type of mumps contracted by hundreds of people during the past three months of an outbreak first announced in August.